Pitfalls of Cameron’s EU talks strategy

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/27/cameron-eu-brexit-strategy-franco-german

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Franco-German proposals for this June’s European Council, for “economic, fiscal and social convergence”, present a challenge and an opportunity for David Cameron. He must not repeat over fiscal convergence the mistake of Margaret Thatcher, who ignored Nigel Lawson’s twice-repeated warning before the Luxembourg meeting in December 1985 that “the inclusion of European monetary union as a treaty objective would be a political commitment going well beyond previous references to EMU”. Thatcher’s later mistake, all too clear in retrospect, was to agree in Hanover in June 1988 to establish a committee of the community’s central bank governors which paved the way for the European Central Bank and the single currency with no safeguards for the UK.

Now in 2015 any Franco-German reference to “additional steps [that] are necessary to examine the political and institutional framework, common instruments and the legal basis” of the eurozone cannot be unanimously agreed without a similar reference to examining the non-eurozone. Without such a parity of esteem for an EU of multiple currencies there can be no basis for a UK renegotiation. It may be helpful that this has been brought to the council by Merkel and Hollande, not Cameron, as it ensures the issue receives the prominence it deserves, albeit putting the UK timetable back into 2017.David OwenForeign secretary 1977-79, London

• Cameron’s EU renegotiation strategy seems based on the assumption that other member states will make significant concessions to keep the UK in the club. But are they really that fussed about Brexit? A UK outside the EU would be in the same position as Norway: obliged to pay a hefty membership fee and comply with EU regulations as a condition of access to the single market, but with no say in setting the rules. This would leave France and Germany free to move forward with ever closer union without the UK foot on the brakes. The economic impact on the EU would be negligible, as UK markets would remain open to EU exporters and EU migrants. Tuesday’s announcement of a Franco-German deal for tighter political union in the eurozone was a clear message to Cameron as he launched his renegotiation campaign that EU leaders see UK demands as an irrelevance.Alastair MacphailCastelnuovo Don Bosco, Italy